$153,983

2,768

What this Book is About

This book is a rich collection of things you can do at home that make a huge, positive, global difference. Without politics or being angry at bad guys. This book features a strong focus on adding luxury to your life instead of sacrifice. And the frosting on the cake is saving a lot of money.

There have been too many recent reports that have spelled out "it's too late." Maybe if the authors of those reports get this book, they will change their report to "there's still hope! If enough of us do the stuff in this book ...."

We all hear about the problems. And usually the solutions are to shake our fists at “the bad guys.” Personal solutions are often about sacrifice: be cold in the winter, eat sawdust, volunteer for dysfunctional organizations, write to politicians, travel less, buy crap marketed as “good for the environment,” take cold showers… I need to point out that most of that stuff makes almost no difference, and some of those things actually make the problems worse. In this book, I put a number on those things and I show the numbers for things that really make a HUGE difference. Save the planet, turn the heat up in winter, take hot showers, eat delicious food, and save thousands of dollars along the way!

And most of all, no anger required. Go ahead and be angry at the bad guys if you want. But I wish to show you a path that will be a thousand times more effective. It turns out to be easy.

Let’s get to it! I present the…

Table of Contents

Just a Taste of the Pretty Drawings

There is a bunch of artwork included in this book. Sometimes to clarify, sometimes to emphasize, and sometimes just for a bit of humor. Here's a mockup to give you an idea:

a sample of the delicious illustrations by Tracy Wandling

Budget

Here is my grand and especially well thought out budget to pull this project off. Presented as a high quality pie chart that I made myself.

WE ARE FUNDED IN 3 HOURS!!!

Umm... wow... umm... that was fast! Now it's time for some stretch goals!

Rewards

About the time of my fourth kickstarter, I had this powerful feeling of gratitude. How cool is it that so many people are trusting me with their coin for six months? I see other kickstarters that make it clear "we will sell this for $20 after the kickstarter, so give us $40 for it now." I think it should be the opposite of that. You are throwing your shoulder in with me to get this done. You are being far more trusting and supportive than people that wait. So I want you to have the best price, and lots of bonus candy!

Rewards: THANKS ($1 and up)

First I have to explain something new we are trying in this kickstarter. The extra goodies are handed out as "gift codes." On my seventh kickstarter, some people said that the goodies didn't have value for them because they got most of those goodies in a previous kickstarter. So this time I am handing them out as gift codes. You can give them to yourself or give them to somebody else.

4 gift codes for Care and Feeding of a Rocket Mass Heater: The microdoc from the kickstarter for the 4-DVD set "Better Wood Heat: DIY Rocket Mass Heaters." Switching from electric heat to a rocket mass heater can reduce your carbon footprint as much as parking seven cars! This is a DIY wood burning contraption that can heat your home with one-tenth the wood that a conventional wood stove uses, and puts out about a hundredth of the smoke. This is a 30-minute video showing five different people using a rocket mass heater and talking about their favorite way to light and care for rocket mass heaters.

4 gift codes for Cooking with a Rocket Oven: The microdoc from the kickstarter for the Rocket Ovens DVD. A rocket oven has a lower footprint than any other kind of oven. And rather than bringing in electricity, propane, or natural gas, a rocket oven can run on nothing but the sticks that fall in your yard - truly off grid. They can also heat up in less than 15 minutes and put out barely any smoke. This video is a 19 minute video of starting and tending a rocket oven, complete with footage of delicious-looking food coming out of the oven.

4 gift codes for Hugelkultur: The microdoc from the kickstarter for the 3-DVD set "World Domination Gardening.” This 16 minute video covers Hugelkultur, a gardening technique that builds amazing soil and after a few years can completely eliminate the need for irrigation. Once set up, Hugelkultur beds can drastically reduce the amount of work involved in growing your own food and reducing a significant source of your carbon footprint.

21 Podcast Review of Sepp Holzer’s Permaculture. This book by Sepp Holzer is one of my favorite books. He details a way of working with nature to solve problems that is absolutely genius. In these recordings, I spent roughly 25 hours reviewing every page and hashing through every detail of this amazing book.

Public Thanks: I've seen some other kickstarters do this and I think we do it much, much better. They post your name to a facebook page where it is lost and forgotten within a couple days. We post it to our thread at permies.com where we have perennial discussions. Thousands of people will actually look at the list for years to come. And, naturally, we will give you a chance to be as creative and as silly as you want. While some people will post their names, or their kids, or maybe plug their business, you can also divulge your plans for world domination and give yourself all the galactic titles you want. Check out the thanks page from our last kickstarter and the one before that.

Rewards: CANDY ($5 and up)

Permaculture Experience ebook (gift code). Also known as the PEP book. This version of the book is called "version 0.7 beta" - so it is an early draft. And even in its early state, people are enjoying it. This is a long list of experiences that you can do at home. And when each experience is complete, you post a picture and have your experience verified. When you have completed enough experiences, you are "PEP1 Certified." Details here and here.

Access to the permies.com "Secret Inner Circle" forum: Join our past kickstarter supporters in a place where you can talk about stuff without the prying eyes of google or "them".

Rewards: Physical Copies or eBook Copies ($25 and up)

This book was written with the idea that people might buy a bunch of books to give to others in an effort to affect significant change through mass education.

Once the kickstarter is over, everybody will get a kickstarter "survey" so I can get all sorts of details from you about your preferences. People that supported the kickstarter at $25 or more will be asked how many physical books they want. The remaining number that they paid for will be converted 3-to-1 from physical books to eBook gift codes.

For example, at the $100 level, folks can choose between 12 physical books or 36 ebook gift codes. Or a mix! The survey question will ask how many physical books you want. Maybe you will put in "8." So the remaining 4 books are converted, 3-to-1, to 12 eBook gift codes. I will send you 8 physical books and 12 eBook gift codes.

Some people have asked "how do the shipping fees work?" Unfortunately we do not have the ability to scale shipping fees based on the number of physical books selected at a particular reward level. Each reward level has a set shipping fee associated with it according to location. If you are getting only ebook gift codes, then you can select "US Virgin Islands" as your shipping location and the shipping charge will be $0 and you will receive 0 physical books. It's not perfect, but it's the best we can do within the system.

And if you are actually in the US Virgin Islands and want physical copies... get in touch and we'll figure something out.

Rewards: GLORY ($100 and up)

Put your most creative name in the book! (80 character limit). We will reserve a page (more if needed) that says "Thanks to our Magnificent Kickstarter Supporters!" Your name appears in our book! Or maybe "in memory of ____" or "mysuperhomestead.com" or "The Fabulous Finnegan Family" or "Paul Wheaton stinks of old fish" or "There once was a gal from Nantucket ..." or maybe it is time you gave yourself some excellent galactic titles like "His Grace, the Duke of Soft Cheeses" or "Supreme Ruler of the Bacteria in my Garden".

Early access to the rough manuscript, plus the opportunity to give last minute feedback.

1 gift code for HD streaming of the Rocket Ovens DVD from my last kickstarter. This video covers, in intricate detail, the building of a rocket oven that is better for the environment than any other kind of oven.

Rewards: PDC and ATC ($200 and up)

100 hour recording of the 2017 Permaculture Design Course at Wheaton Labs. Even if you already have decades of homesteading experience, this course will show you how to think like a designer. It covers permaculture design concepts and themes, climate and land forms, working with water, soil quality and care, trees, crops, microorganisms, sustainable livestock management, botany, and so much more! You can fit a lot of great info into 100 hours!

77 hour recording of the 2017 Appropriate Technology Course at Wheaton Labs. In this course you will learn the thought process and practical steps for building systems that help you live both sustainably and comfortably. This course covers solar power, cooling strategies for warm climates, heating strategies for cold climates, home water systems, and many other appropriate technology solutions.

About the Authors

Paul Wheaton is a giant doofus who is bonkers about permaculture. He won’t shut up about permaculture. On and on, every day ... it’s annoying. He has gone so far as to make a 3-DVD set that is just about the earthworks for permaculture gardening. And not only did he make a 4-DVD set about rocket mass heaters, but he made ANOTHER 4-DVD set about rocket mass heaters. Why on earth do people need 8 DVDs about something so simple? If you think that is ridiculous, take a look at his 177 hours of video of a full Permaculture Design Course, and Appropriate Technology course. Then there’s the cards. Okay, the permaculture playing cards are pretty cool.

Before all of that, Paul created hundreds of podcasts, youtube videos, articles, and other bits and bobs about permaculture. That should have been the first sign, right there, that health professionals should have stopped all this. That, or his 26,000 forum posts at permies.com. And he has at least that many at his other site, CodeRanch.com. Oh, yeah, he used to be a software engineer before all this permaculture stuff.

Shawn Klassen-Koop’s passion for building a better world grew from many years of working at a summer camp. This time inspired awe and wonder for the natural world through many hours camping in the woods, paddling on a lake, or sleeping under the stars. Seeking to solve world problems with clever thinking, Shawn decided to pursue computer engineering as a career, where he learned the importance of good design and strong critical thinking. In time he felt like modern technology was causing more problems than it was solving and started looking for a better way. It was then that he stumbled upon and fell in love with permaculture as a way to use his design skills to work with nature rather than against nature. Shawn was preparing to start his own homestead when he was faced with serious health challenges that prevented him from doing any physical work. It was during this time that the opportunity to work on this book came up. Shawn jumped on it, wanting to do whatever he could to share these ideas with others.

Risks and challenges

A lot of kickstarters want to get funding before the people doing the kickstarter have done much of anything. Before they have any skin in the game. We have been working on this book now for over a year and have already finished writing all 32 chapters (plus 2 appendices) and revised them numerous times along the way. We have brought this project as far as we can before paying for artwork, editing, layout, printing, and a few other bits and bobs. So all of the challenges writers face are behind us. Now we face the exciting world of “self pub” which is new to us. We have made a detailed list of who we have selected to process every step, but this is our first time and we are nervous about entering into something we have not done before.